


Devil Without A Cause

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [22]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark Character, Established Relationship, Letters, M/M, Prison, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22854232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Song Lyrics prompt:Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, "Love doesn't discriminate / Between the sinners / And the saints" -- Wait for It from HamiltonIn which John, now serving his prison sentence, receives a letter.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610332
Comments: 24
Kudos: 74
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Devil Without A Cause

John was a patient man. 

Without patience, mistakes were made. And he wasn’t a man who made mistakes. He followed the rules, he kept his head down, and he waited. Good behavior would get him out sooner, and for that he needed to control himself.

“Sheppard. Mail.”

John took the envelope when it was slipped through the bars. His address had been typed on a label, and there was no return address, but he knew who it was from and a little buzz of anticipation moved through him. The letters were rare.

Like the address, the letter had been printed off a computer. No greeting, no signature, generic tone to the writing, nothing to trace it back to the person who wrote it. There wouldn’t be any fingerprints, no saliva on the envelope’s flap.

There wasn’t much difference between a well-trained FBI agent and a serial killer, when it came to being undetectable.

_I thought you’d like to know your brother is doing well. The automatic payments have been coming through smoothly._

John was pleased the system was working. His brother Dave, the unwitting catalyst for John’s dark need to kill, had no-one else to look after his welfare. Harmony Acres was a good place, a safe place. Feelings didn’t fit well on John. He didn’t like naming them, and he had a hard time expressing them the way other people seemed to, but he felt very protective of his little brother.

_Work for me has been going well. The new guy didn’t last long, but as you know I work best on my own. I hope to be traveling your way soon and will try to stop in for a visit. I miss you, and I hope you’re staying safe._

John’s feelings for Agent M. Rodney McKay were even harder for him to quantify. It had started as a challenge, pitting his mind against Rodney’s. But it had shifted into something even more dangerous. John had grown dependent on Rodney in a way, refusing to engage with any other agent once he was on the case. His compulsive need to be around Rodney wasn’t that different from his compulsion to kill those men; it was a force outside himself, out of his control.

Rodney had aided and abetted him in his work, sending John names of men who fit his criteria. Men who needed to die. He’d turned Rodney from a saint into a sinner, and he felt no remorse for it. It made them closer, put them on more even footing.

_I was thinking the other day about our second encounter. I can’t see a strawberry now without remembering and getting turned on. You may have ruined strawberries for me forever._

John’s lips twitched up in a grin. He’d planned on killing Rodney after their first encounter, when he’d picked the man up in a bar, because he could see things in John’s murders that no-one else did. But there’d been something between them, even then. A familiarity on a bone-deep level he couldn’t explain. And maybe John had made a mistake after all, letting himself get taken in. Needing to possess Rodney in a way he possessed nothing else. Needing Rodney, period.

_I hope you’re making use of therapy. Our future together depends on it._

John had been going regularly. He knew Rodney was hoping the urge to kill would be eradicated. John himself wasn’t so sure, though deep down he wanted the same thing, wanted freedom from the unrelenting drive to drag the monsters out into the light. The urge had lessened, certainly, though that might’ve been a case of not having access to the men he was drawn to kill: well-to-do paragons of society who were secret pedophiles and abusers. Stand-ins for his own father, Rodney would say.

Rodney might be right. He was pretty smart. Hadn’t he managed to get John jailed on a manslaughter charge without anyone being the wiser about the other deaths, the ones that would’ve gotten him the chair? The deaths that really mattered?

_Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. Until next time…_

There were no declarations of love, which suited John fine. In his mind he translated all the stilted, anonymous writing into Rodney’s voice, imagined Rodney’s expressive gestures. John felt a sharp stab of longing. 

He was six months into a seven-year sentence. Five years with good behavior. It was a long time to wait.

But John was a patient man. And Rodney was worth waiting for.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Title from the [song of the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1S6YwQjzXU) by Kid Rock. When I saw this prompt, I immediately thought about my Killer Instinct ‘verse, which I had thought was finished. And which never took place from John’s POV. But here we are!


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